


Practical Defense Theory

by meanwhiletimely



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Academic Lecturing By A Not-So-Secret Dark Wizard, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Tom Got The Job, Bellamort, Cock Worship, Dominance and Submission, Extracurricular Use of Unforgivable Curses, F/M, Humiliation, Loss of Virginity, Mentor/Protégé, Power Imbalance, Professor Tom Riddle, Sexual Content, Spanking, Teacher/Student
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 01:56:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8184674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanwhiletimely/pseuds/meanwhiletimely
Summary: An enticing opportunity was presenting itself, and Tom was not one to waste opportunities.
Bellatrix Black requests a private lesson from her Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and Professor Riddle is all too willing to oblige his favorite student.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Bellatrix is 16 when Voldemort is in his 40s, so this is obviously _not_ a healthy dynamic. Tom Riddle is a predatory psychopath. Proceed accordingly.

_"Well," said Dumbledore, still smiling, "to a wizard such as myself, there can be nothing more important than passing on ancient skills, helping hone young minds. If I remember correctly, you once saw the attraction of teaching, too."_  
_"I see it still," said Voldemort._

— Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 20: "Lord Voldemort's Request"

* * *

Professor Riddle was likely to retire in a year, and—in his own professional estimation—equally as likely to cast the Killing Curse on an unsuspecting first-year before then.

Juvenile insights on the Dark Arts were uniformly worthless, grading the homework assignments of incompetent twelve-year-olds was an almost unfathomably dull exercise, and teaching _Defense_ against his own expertise, on the whole, was a spectacularly ludicrous use of his time. 

But Tom was nothing if not practical, and practically, setting the stage for the perfect moment to re-open the Chamber of Secrets while building an army of schoolchildren directly beneath Albus Dumbledore's crooked nose required patience—required sacrifice—required quite a bit of long-term planning. Fortunately, long-term planning was among the most unrivaled of Tom’s many, _many_ skills.

Lecturing, it had to be admitted, was another. While he was certainly no stranger to the experience of a captive audience, there was still something undeniably exhilarating about a room full of impressionable young minds hanging spellbound on his every word. In how many of them could he plant seeds of rebellion against the current magical regime? How many could he turn against his enemies and fashion into weapons? How many of them could he ready to eventually serve him, go to battle for him,  _die_ for him?

Enough, on a good day, to make the entire laborious process entirely worthwhile. Today—only one week into this new term—was proving to be a  _very_ good day.

“They are called the Dark _Arts_ for a reason," he was saying, holding court before his sixth-years. "There is an artistry to the practice of Dark magic beyond the practice of simple, domesticated spells. Far from being inherently evil or universally hostile, the Dark Arts are merely unpredictable, and perilous to those without the knowledge and skill required to master them. Who can tell me why?”

In her seat at the very front table, Bellatrix Black raised a leisurely hand. 

Tom’s sixth-year Defense Against the Dark Arts class was comprised, naturally, of the top students in the school—he did not accept students into his N.E.W.T. classes who had not achieved an ‘Outstanding’ at Ordinary Wizarding Level. This did have the unfortunate effect of culling the Heirs of many of his followers: Rodolphus Lestrange, Altair Avery, and Vulcan Mulciber had barely mustered an ‘Exceeds Expectations’ in the previous year, and that was hardly the magical aptitude required of his future soldiers. He had had a stern conversation with each of their fathers, punctuated by a few well-placed hexes, and was pleased to see the younger Lestrange, Avery, and Mulciber strive to be _outstanding_ at every single one of his clandestine extracurricular meetings since.

Bellatrix Black, being female, was not the Heir to any of his followers.  
Bellatrix Black, being a Black, was not an inevitable Death Eater at all.

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, he knew, agreed with him in theory: the Dark Arts were the truest expression of magic, while Muggles were genetic perversions that must be eliminated if the world were to be Purified. In practice, however, they had proven less than willing to bow to a half-blooded Dark Lord—Heir of Slytherin or no. Tom vividly remembered Walburga Black’s sneering scorn of him in school, and the Black patriarch, Arcturus, had even colluded with Dumbledore in attempting to prove Morfin Gaunt’s innocence while acting as Advisor to the Minister some twenty-five years ago. (Unsuccessfully, he hardly need add—but _inconveniently_ nonetheless.)

To this day, there were no Blacks among his followers. Bellatrix Black, he had determined years ago, would be the very first.

The fact that she was a Black would have been enough to capture his attention. The fact that she was wickedly clever in class and unusually talented in dueling practice, with an insatiable thirst for the precise knowledge he possessed, was enough to merit his particular interest. Haughty and supremely disdainful to those she considered beneath her—which was almost everyone—she carried herself with the sort of casual elegance and lethal poise that came naturally to a beneficiary of seven hundred years of magical wealth and privilege. The sheer, innate _power_ of her spellwork was even more arresting than the aristocratic good looks she was growing into by the year: sharp, striking features that could only result from centuries of noble breeding, with flashing grey eyes and hair as black as his own.

Once, he had imagined his mother—after realizing his descent from Slytherin through the female line; before seeing the weak, hideous creature wrenched from Morfin's memories—to be much like Bellatrix Black.

"Do tell, Miss Black," he said smoothly. It was a cultivated tone—he typically visualized sliding a hot knife through butter, or through flesh—and it had the desired effect on Bellatrix, who looked rather flustered as she lowered her hand.

"Dark magic is unpredictable by nature because it is the oldest form of magic, requiring the caster to access and harness magical energy in its most chaotic form. "

"Very good, Miss Black," Tom nodded, observing her slight flush at the praise with cold satisfaction. “Drawn as they are from the raw material by which spells in general are created, the Dark Arts do not require the wand control necessary to most modern wizardry. What they do require is a physical and psychological connection to the spell, and a highly focused  _intent_ , whether benign or malign.”

He Conjured a translucent map in the air before him, lighting up locations with his wand as the class hastened to take notes. "All magic, as we know, originated in Africa.  _All_ magic, originally, was harnessed by hand and soul and blood from wandless chaos. The earliest rituals of African sorcerers and shamans would all be defined as Dark. Even today, students of the African wizarding school of Uagadou do not require wands to channel any sort of magic, and variations on ancient African Dark rituals are still practiced openly in certain parts of the American South."

This was a fact that Tom was especially partial to. When he had been abroad seeking out distant Gaunt descendants in America, an enchanting dark-skinned witch in New Orleans had introduced him to an obscure branch of Dark magic known as  _vodou_. The rituals of Damballah, or  _Zombi_ —the  _vodou_  snake god—had been instrumental in driving him toward the breakthrough of creating his first Inferius. (His pursuit of supposed Parselmouth snake-handlers in the mountains of Appalachia had been less fruitful: if Tom never had to hear another Christian hymn for the rest of his immortal life, it would be too soon.)

"Additionally," he continued over the flurry of quills on parchment, "ancient Egyptian magicians harnessed chaos magic for their charms and ceremonies, frequently involving sacred serpents—relevant to this day, since Salazar Slytherin himself could trace his ancestry to Egypt." Evan Rosier—the son of one of Tom's first and most favored Death Eaters—looked down at his desk with a knowing smile at that. His cousin Bellatrix, too, quirked her lips upward as Tom finished archly, "He and the other Founders lived in a time when most Western spells had yet to be classified or formalized, so all four of them regularly used wild, organic magic that we today would call Dark. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that Hogwarts would not exist without the Dark Arts." Amid stunned looks and murmurs, he dissembled the map with a flourish.

“You will find, if you have not already, that the very recent idea of this magical heritage being transgressive and destructive has made the majority of the British wizarding population singularly uncreative. Here, it is rare to find a wizard—or a witch, for that matter—” He again locked eyes with Bellatrix—“willing to test the boundaries of magic by exploring and experimenting beyond the basic spells being taught in class.”

"But sir," ventured Claudius Gamp, paling considerably when Tom turned a cool gaze on him, "there are some spells we aren't allowed to be taught for a reason—"

“Assuming you refer to the Unforgivable Curses,” interrupted Tom, ignoring the uneasy frisson rippling through the room at the phrase, “then yes—those are indeed the only three legally forbidden spells. All others are perfectly sanctioned under the law, if not by some factions of society.”

A Ravenclaw raised her hand. “The Wizengamot—”

“Certain members of the Wizengamot _—_ " Tom said with a sharp edge to his voice that made the girl shrivel in her seat—“are currently doing their best to define illegal Dark magic as ‘anything the Ministry doesn’t approve of this week'. That does not make Dark spells any more constrainable, or an understanding of them any less imperative.”

Albus Dumbledore had been making increasingly incendiary speeches to the Wizengamot over the summer in response to Tom publishing a controversial research paper on Necromancy the previous term, urging more explicit legal restrictions on Dark magic to the point of proposing a bill that would track and ban the use of half a dozen spells discussed within the paper. The ensuing eruption of political debate and scholarly hand-wringing had not prevented Tom from presenting an award-winning treatise on British lycanthropy at the Symposium of Sorcery the following month, however—and just two weeks ago, his pioneering study on an elusive tribe of giants in the Himalayas had been the Gold Medal-Winner for Ground-Breaking Contribution to the Conference for the Study of Dark Creatures.

In entirely related news, Tom’s developing network of contacts and allies within the giant and werewolf communities had grown this past summer to be nearly as large as his burgeoning army of Inferi.

The fact remained that while Dumbledore's original intent to restrict and monitor Tom's activities by keeping him safely ensconced within the academic confines of Hogwarts had been backfiring brilliantly of late—and would only continue to do so as the final pieces of his plan to introduce Lord Voldemort to the public fell into place—the Headmaster was becoming more and more of an obstacle to his ability to take advantage of the system. The Wizengamot bill would need to be dealt with... some thinly-veiled threats to the powerful parents and grandparents of a few of his most prominent students should do the trick... and then he had another year at most before Dumbledore demanded his resignation.

Much could happen in a year. Tom was wholly confident of _that_.

"While we're on the topic," he said now, "let us discuss these so-called... Unforgivables." Flicking his wand toward the blackboard, Tom spelled out a few of his very favorite words.  _Imperio_. _Crucio._ _Avada Kedavra._ Every eye in the class followed him in rapt attention as he began to pace the front of the room.

“As defined by the Ministry, the Unforgivable Curses are purely Dark, with no other purpose than to hurt, to control, and to kill—and yes, successful implementation requires the intent to harm, as well as the ability to take pleasure in doing so. But is there truly _never_ any justification for that?” Several students exchanged looks, unsure if the question was rhetorical—but Tom was already continuing. “If you needed to prevent someone from hurting you or others, would you hesitate to override that person’s will? If someone _did_ hurt you deeply, would it be entirely Unforgivable to hurt them back?” Many of the students were visibly disconcerted now as they thought this over. He went on. “If a Killing Curse hit someone you _love_ —” Tom suppressed a smile, imagining Dumbledore’s reaction to the turn of this particular lecture—“might you find it worth imprisonment in Azkaban to avenge that person’s death?”

No one spoke or moved for a long, taut moment—until Emmeline Vance appeared to summon her Gryffindor courage long enough to raise her hand.

“With all due respect, Professor, this is starting to sound less like Defense  _Against_ the Dark Arts and more like Defense  _of_ the Dark Arts.”

Another murmur shot through the class: challenging Professor Riddle, they had all learned within the first month of his tutelage, was akin to offering oneself up for public evisceration. Emmeline, evidently, had a death wish.

Tom, however, merely gave a thin, sharp smile. "Protection and appreciation are not mutually exclusive."

"Spoken like a true Dark wizard. _Sir_." Emmeline ignored the warning looks and taken aback stares of the rest of her classmates, adding boldly, "One could almost imagine that's exactly what you are."

Tom moved toward her, expressionless, as the class shrank back in their seats with every step. Leaning over her table, he murmured into fresh silence, "It would appear you are _not_ a witch of limited imagination, Miss Vance." She shivered, recoiling at the sibilant cadence of his voice. "Join me for detention this Saturday, and I will give you a glimpse of just how  _imaginative_ I myself can be."

Emmeline looked as though she'd been Confunded and hit with a Stinging Hex simultaneously. The rest of them hardly dared breathe as Tom swept calmly back to his desk. "I expect three feet of parchment explaining the influence of the Dark Arts on developing magical practices around the world from each of you by next week. Read the chapter on non-verbal incantations in _Curses and Counter-Curses_  and be aware that wandless battle magic will be prominently featured on the exam." To say the least. "Class dismissed."

As soon as he'd finished speaking, the students (Emmeline first among them, Tom noted with mild contempt—that Gryffindor courage only went so far) hastened to gather their belongings and scurry to the door. Bellatrix alone hung back, taking her time with her satchel until she was the only one left in the room.

Tom sorted through a stack of assignments to be graded during the free period as she approached his desk. She cleared her throat with only enough audacity to amuse rather than incense him—he asked without looking up, "Something you wish to say, Miss Black?"

"I wanted to return your book," she said, "and to thank you for lending it to me."

Tom kept her waiting for another anticipatory moment before looking up from his papers at last. Bellatrix was holding out his own worn copy of  _Secrets of the Darkest Art_ by Owle Bullock, smiling a lazy half-smile that he suspected she intended to be enigmatic and beguiling. No doubt it worked wonders on sixth-year Slytherin boys... but Tom had not been a sixth-year Slytherin boy for quite some time, and his own lazy half-smiles could have put hers to shame even then.

"Ah, yes," he said, impassive. Intentionally brushing the back of her hand with his fingers as he took it from her, and feeling her start at the touch, he flicked through its well-remembered pages—he had torn out the chapter on Horcuxes more than two decades ago. "Did you learn any worthwhile secrets?"

"So many," she said fervently, her refined Black features lighting up with genuine excitation. "The parts on weaponizing cursed objects and the uses of Basilisk venom in blood magic were especially intriguing." She paused. "Theoretically, of course."

"Of course," Tom said with a wry caress of the book's faded black leather. "Should you find yourself interested in additional theorizing outside of class, I suggest you next read _Shadows and Spirits_ by Barnabas Deverill. There is a copy in the Restricted Section." He signed her a permission slip.

She took it with thanks and slipped it into her satchel, but did not turn to go. Tom studied her: she was hesitating, appearing to be working up the nerve to speak, and wore a hopeful, innocently earnest expression that Tom recognized immediately, having perfected it himself over the course of seven years spent charming special favors from his professors. He waited.

"Sir," she said finally, "I know you hold after-class meetings, sometimes, with some of the boys in my year. I would like to request to join."

Tom raised his brows. "I was not aware the members of that little club had been speaking of it to you." This was a lie—he had made sure of it, of course. "Nor was I aware that you required private tutoring."

"I would treasure private tutoring. More than Lestrange, or Malfoy, or any of the rest of them." She was speaking louder with every word, radiating righteous passion. " _They_ can learn the Dark Arts at home, while I—"

She cut off in abrupt alarm, realizing what she had just implied about the nature of his 'private tutoring'.

"I confess myself surprised," Tom said after a moment, seeing her release the breath she had been holding. “It was your own great-great-grandfather, was it not, who successfully pushed for the subject to be withdrawn from the curriculum in order to encourage private study?” The House of Black’s displeasure at the Ministry’s increasingly liberal Hogwarts admittance policies in the 19th-century had driven Headmaster Phineas Nigellus Black to ensure that Mudbloods and half-bloods would not, at the very least, be formally trained in the Dark Arts. _That_ was a realm of study the Blacks definitively wished to reserve for their own use, and that of the other ancient Pureblood lines. (It was quite the unpleasant shock, he was sure, that a half-blood had nonetheless managed to surpass them all.)

"Yes, sir," Bellatrix said carefully, "but my family's encouragement of that... private study... does not extend..." Her mouth twisted bitterly. "Does not extend to me."

"I see," said Tom, arching a brow. He was well aware that the House of Black did not treat its daughters as it did its sons. Sons of the House were raised with intimate knowledge of the Dark Arts practically from birth. Daughters of the House were raised to marry Purely and breed more sons.

It was only natural that a witch of Bellatrix Black’s abilities and proclivities would hunger for more, and as the most powerful practitioner of Dark magic the world had likely ever known, Tom was uniquely suited to satiate that hunger—a fact she clearly knew as well as he did.

An enticing opportunity was presenting itself, and Tom was not one to waste opportunities.

"You would find my after-class meetings quite boring," he told her, examining a Dark artifact on his desk with aloof interest. "There is a great deal of talking and discussion of—" he paused delicately—"theory." She opened her mouth, likely to tell him exactly how riveting she found his  _talking_ and his  _theories_ , but closed it again when he held up a silencing hand. "However, you are welcome to join. We next meet in Hogsmeade two weeks from now. Your cousin Mr. Rosier can provide the details."

Her entire face lit up with victorious glee. "Thank you, Professor. I won't let you down."

"You never do, Miss Black. You remain, in fact, among my most dedicated students." She inclined her head in smug acknowledgement. "And perhaps once you are of age," he continued, "your private tutoring can move from theory into practice."

Smugness twisted quickly into resentful vexation. "I'm not a child," she snapped. "I'm the best duelist in this school—I've read every book you've given me—I already  _know_ all about the Unforgivable Curses—"

"Is that so?" Something—a precarious edge to his voice, a dangerous glint to his eyes—made her blanch. "Have you fought them? Have you  _cast_ them?" She slowly shook her head. "Then you know nothing, Miss Black."

She stepped closer, all that desperate hunger he knew burned and churned inside of her suddenly very visible on her face. "Teach me," she implored. "I want to learn. I want to know."

Tom rose from his chair and circled the desk, pacing around her where she stood as she followed him with her eyes. "If," he said, considering, "I allow you a private lesson—" He heard her breath catch—"I prefer a practical, hands-on approach. Not theory, but _experience_. Are you certain you're prepared for that? Are you certain you have the strength and the skill?"

"I'm very certain," she said quietly. Tom unsheathed his wand.

"Then we will begin with defense against the Imperius Curse." 

She blinked, staring at him in shocked incredulity. "You... You're going to use the Imperius... on _me_."

He tilted his head as if regarding a favorite pet on the verge of disappointing him. "Unless you're not so prepared after all?"

She set her jaw—and set down her satchel. "I can resist the Imperius Curse."

Tom gave a faint smile. "We shall see, Miss Black." Directing her to stand in the center of the room, he locked and warded the door, adding a  _Muffliato_ for good measure. "The vast majority of people do not have the strength of mind and power of will required to battle it. But then..." He turned the full focus of his gaze on her. "You're not the vast majority of people, are you?"

She stood very still as he raised his wand, eyes gone wide with the force of his undivided attention, with the full realization of what he was about to do to her, with sudden doubt and dread; but Tom was already speaking the syllables, elegant and precise,  _exact_ , perfectly controlled. 

 _"Imperio,"_ he intoned—and with that, he had  put imperious Bellatrix Black under the Imperius.

The sensation of his will overriding another's—of submission and suggestibility, of rewiring a mind to his whims, of needing only to _think_ a command and being at once obeyed—was always a distinctly rapturous experience for him, pleasurable to the point of being almost carnal. Tom sometimes imagined casting it again and again and again and never ceasing until every being on Earth was under his control; ruling both the living and the dead forever by Imperius and Inferius alike; the incomparable thrill of an entire _world_ bent wholly to his will.

It was an indulgent fantasy, but Tom could afford to occasionally indulge himself.

Now though, as Bellatrix's sharp features went slack and placid; as her flashing eyes glazed over in vague docility; as he suggested that she set her Slytherin robe and tie down on the ground by her satchel and saw her think the suggestion reasonable enough to comply; he found himself almost... dissatisfied. The power of his own curse was not surprising, but his lack of gratification at so easily subduing her was. Perhaps he had expected her to put up more of a fight—his most cherished trophies, after all, were always the most hard-won.

Although, he remembered with a cold flash of renewed anticipation, they  _were_ just getting started.

"The Imperius Curse," he asserted, setting aside his wand and stepping closer to where Bellatrix was waiting passively for her next instructions, "requires the complex creation of a connection between minds—requires me to reach out a thread from my brain to yours and  _twist._ " She winced on that final word, looking momentarily faint: he had told her nerves to pinch themselves, and they had obeyed. "Your challenge, Miss Black, is to cut that thread."

Sentience flickered behind her glassy grey eyes: awareness, understanding. 

 _Good,_ he thought with a spark of glittering malice.  _Unbutton your blouse_.

Sentience, now, did not merely flicker: half a dozen emotions flitted rapidly across her features before settling on surprised indignity. She met his gaze, defiant, and pointedly reached up to undo a single button before lowering her hands to her sides. Tom very nearly laughed. _The entire blouse, you cheeky little girl._

Cheeks now burning an exquisite shade of crimson, Bellatrix obeyed with shaking fingers, unbuttoning the entirety of her uniform blouse to reveal a slim, pale torso and what had to be a _heinously_ expensive black silk bra. Tom assessed her with a detached, clinical expression: she was trembling, appearing almost light-headed with nerves and apprehension. Even under the haze of the Imperius, she knew exactly what was coming next.

 _Remove it,_ he ordered silently, adding with a sharp smile as she drew a shaking breath, _The blouse_ and _the bra, to be quite clear._

She stood very still for a long, breathless moment as he waited with raised brows, observing the compulsion of the curse warring with her sense of propriety and pride. No well-bred Pureblood girl would strip off her clothes for a man she was not courting or betrothed to—let alone a half-blooded Hogwarts professor nearly thrice her age. Tom felt a thrill of vicious satisfaction. That  _was_ rather the point.

Slow and halting—struggling to make use of her trembling fingers—Bellatrix slipped the open blouse off her shoulders, then reached to unclasp her bra. He watched in cold amusement as she froze for another instant, trying and failing to resist the spell's demands, before unhooking the bra in a rush and letting it fall. She gave a strangled sort of gasp as her small, round breasts sprang free, leaving her stripped to the waist before him.

Tom felt a euphoric rush of power: the familiar rapture of obedience, the gratifying relish of subordination and control.

"You," he said impassively, dragging his eyes across her bare skin with deliberate, penetrating scrutiny and silently suppressing her instinct to cover herself, "are certainly all grown up."

Her arms were shaking at her sides, fighting in vain against his Imperiused command not to cover her breasts. Her breathing was sharp and shallow, and those high, aristocratic cheekbones were feverish and flushed. She was twisting her legs together desperately, almost writhing where she stood, and her pert little nipples had hardened immediately under his gaze.

She wasn’t humiliated at being forced to expose herself to him; she was _excited_ by it.

How utterly delightful.

“Why, Miss Black…” Her eyelids flickered at the sound of his voice as he approached, circling around to tease and grope her from behind: twisting her nipples between his fingers; squeezing the firm flesh of her breasts until she gasped and lurched against him—gasping again when she felt the hardening bulge beneath his robes. He flicked his tongue out into her ear like a snake, igniting a low moan, and hissed, “I don’t believe I compelled you to become _aroused_. _”_

She glanced back at him with spell-glazed eyes—desperate, pleading, mortified—and Tom felt his cock twitch in anticipation. _Kneel_ , he ordered silently, watching as her knees began to shake under the weight of his command, as she curled her hands into fists and dug her nails into her palms, as she struggled to defy him and remain upright. Older, greater wizards would have collapsed by now. Her resistance really was remarkable... and would make her inevitable submission even sweeter. Brushing aside her long black hair to trail cold fingers along the vulnerable nape of her neck, Tom leaned closer, savoring the way her breath hitched in her throat. “Kneel, Bellatrix,” he whispered directly into her ear, smirking as she sank to her knees at last at the sound of her name on his lips.

 _Crawl to me,_ he directed now, stepping backward as he forced her to all fours—admiring the way her skirt slid up, revealing black silk panties to match the cast-off bra. She glared up at him, unmoving, and he smiled. “Proud, Pure Miss Black. You’ve discarded your clothes; surely you can now discard your dignity. _Crawl."_

Watching her inch toward him on her hands and knees across rough stone, shining hair sweeping the floor—knowing she was aroused by his power over her; knowing she was nonetheless resisting and resenting every second—Tom could not remember in the _slightest_ why he had felt unsated by her initial meek accordance with the curse.

When she arrived prostrate at his feet at last, he had her press her lips to the hem of his robes. The sight of a follower kissing his robes in supplication was far from an unfamiliar sight for him, but the sight of Bellatrix doing so distinctly was. He would ensure it became a repeat occurrence.

Compelling her up to her knees again, Tom met her eyes with a cold, challenging smile and commanded her to unfasten the front of his robes. 

She did not move for a long, trembling moment, merely staring up at him with a focused, almost anguished expression—then shut her eyes tightly, staggering forward onto the floor, grasping at his robes. Tom felt a mental _pinch_ , a brief sting of pressure in his skull, and when Bellatrix pulled herself up again, her gaze was keen and clear and sharp.

She had severed the connection, he realized with a staggering jolt of comprehension. She had cut the thread. She had managed to throw off his Imperius.

He searched for words. None came. She had actually rendered him speechless.

"I don't—I don't need the curse." Her voice was low and uneven; breaths coming sharp and shallow as she looked up at him, appearing half triumphant, half uncertain. "It would be an honor to serve you..." She hesitated, choosing her next words carefully. "...in this way, and in others." Without waiting for Tom to reply, she reached for the front of his robes.

Bellatrix Black, he thought in a slight daze as she unfastened the opening of his robes with light, deferential fingers—obeying his Imperiused command even after successfully resisting the Imperius Curse—was going to be his _most_ faithful servant.

He gave a tight smile as she let out a small, wide-eyed gasp on releasing the hard length of his cock. He did not need Legilimency to know she was suddenly greatly doubting her ability to  _serve_ him satisfactorily. Nevertheless, he saw as she worshipfully took him into her hands, she was going to try. Ever the excellent, diligent student.

“What have you learned from this exercise, Miss Black?”

She trailed her tongue up his shaft as she answered, pausing periodically to press reverent kisses to its length. “I have learned, Professor, that it is doubly difficult to resist the Imperius Curse when it commands me to do things that I would already want to do without it.”

“Then I am doubly impressed,” Tom managed to say evenly against the sharp jolt of pleasure running through him as she kissed the head of his cock, “by your strength of will.”

He felt her smile briefly, murmuring, "Thank you, sir."

“You will refer to me in private,” he told her, entwining one hand in her hair, “as _Master._ ” Her lips parted—not to take him into her mouth, but in affronted surprise. He tightened his grip on her hair, forcing her head back to look at him as he said sharply, “Do you understand?”

When she did not immediately answer, he pulled harder, and she gave a satisfying whimper before exhaling, "No."

The fact that she would defy him while kneeling topless at his feet, having only seconds ago been worshipping his cock, was so unexpected and unfathomable that it took a moment to register. When he spoke, his voice was low and venomous. “What did you say to me?”

She lifted her chin, meeting his eyes in proud defiance. “I said _no_.” A quick glimpse into her mind showed she was thinking scornfully of her family’s house elves—their murmurs of _Master_ , their simpering bows.

Tom schooled his features into a chilling mask as he gazed down at her in dark amusement, barely withholding the laugh simmering up in his throat. His own little house-elf. Time to take away the rest of her clothes. “Men stronger and more arrogant than you," he said aloud in a voice like cold iron, "have bowed before me and called me Master.” Sudden, startled terror passed behind her eyes—had she forgotten who she was truly speaking to? Who she had as good as sworn to serve?He traced a single finger down her cheek as she gave an involuntary shudder, saying quietly, “I _will_ master you, Miss Black… and I will not need the Imperius to do so.”

Wrenching a bruising grip around the arm where his Mark would someday be, he dragged her over to the table where she sat in class and bent her over it—slamming her bare chest onto the hard wood surface, indifferent to her yelp of pain. 

In one quick, fluid movement—easily restraining her feeble attempts to free herself—Tom tore her pleated skirt down from her waist and let it fall. Before she could speak or protest, he brought his hand down hard on her wriggling little arse, over the black silk knickers.

She inhaled sharply and froze, appearing astounded: of all he’d said and done today, this seemed to shock her most. Spanking, clearly, was an unfamiliar concept to her—no doubt the House of Black’s disciplinary approach was rather less… visceral… in style. Why raise a hand, after all, when you could raise a wand?

Unfortunately for Bellatrix, Tom’s earliest days at Wool’s Orphanage had made him well-acquainted with the humiliating sting of corporal punishment.

He gave another, lighter slap, dragging his hand over the seat of her drenched silk panties. Oh, she was so,  _so_ wet for him: her inner thighs were glistening with evidence of her arousal, and she was already leaning into his touch. “Partial as I am toward more _complex_ magic,” Tom said conversationally, rubbing her stinging skin as she squirmed, “some basic classroom spells can be quite useful. You are familiar, I think, with the Vanishing Charm?” 

She said nothing, apparently unable to look at him. He slapped her again.

“What is the incantation of the Vanishing Charm, Miss Black?”

“Evanesco,” she bit out, thrashing in his grip on her hip.

“Correct,” said Tom—leaning closer, pressing harder. “ _Evanesco._ ” With a wave of his hand, the black silk fabric of her knickers had Vanished. Bellatrix made a noise like a startled animal, jerking against him as she was suddenly bared to his palm.

“That was—those were spell-woven silk!” she cried, sounding near-hysterical. 

“ _Were_ they?” Tom said dryly. Another slap, striking perilously close to the wet slit now fully visible at the intersection of her thighs. “Unfortunate, then, that they were already very much ruined.” A short, panicked half-laugh bubbled up from the back of her throat. 

Every curve of her body was now laid bare before him, clothed in nothing but her knee socks—he took a brief moment to bask. She was nearly as pale as he was, pale enough that he could see stark veins beneath white skin; Pure blood coursing, rushing to the surface. He wanted to cut her open, to bleed her out and drain her dry, to bruise all that untarnished white to black and blue and red.

Enlivened by the thought, he brought his hand down with increasing force, savoring the way that pale, Pure skin reddened and burned; the way she writhed helplessly against him; the way she glistened more and more between her legs with every blow. Bellatrix, it seemed, had a _unique_ relationship to pain. Interesting. He could work with that.

“Professor, please,” she choked out between slaps, grey eyes bright with tears as she twisted in his grip to look at him, overwhelmed enough to beg. “You’re hurting me—”

“Observant as always, Miss Black,” agreed Tom pleasantly. “That is, in fact, my intention. And I do believe...” He slapped her harder, deliberately brushing her soaked cunt with his fingers. “...you _like_ it.”

Bellatrix covered her face with a squealing groan as she squirmed against his hand, rendered incoherent with shame and desperation. He ran his fingers over her wet entrance—caressing, stroking her folds—to the swollen bud of her clit, teasing it with careful circles. She pressed back against him, moaning into her hands. When he slipped a finger inside of her, Tom felt the reason for her sudden, clenching gasp: she was still intact.

"Ah," he murmured near her ear, cupping her mound with his hand and leaning so that she felt his hardness pressing upon her hip. "Pure in more ways than one." She lowered her own hands and turned to look at him as he brushed back her hair to see her flushed face—her pleading eyes—her trembling lips. "You claimed to be no child. Would you like to prove it?"

Her voice was thick with desire, quivering only slightly as she said, "Yes."

With no further word or warning, Tom plunged two fingers entirely inside of her as she gave a pained, piercing cry. Removing them, he saw his fingertips slick with red, Pure blood. He pressed it to his tongue, tasting the metallic sweetness of it, before reaching down to forcibly finger the lips of her mouth as he had fingered her lower lips. She obediently sucked his fingers into her mouth—tasting her blood, her own fluids—as Tom purred, "Congratulations, Miss Black."

All barriers removed, he resumed pleasuring her with rising force and speed, stopping abruptly when he felt her near the brink. She cried out in protest, struggling in his iron-clad grasp to look at him.

“I— _please_ —I want—” She cut off with a sobbing sigh as he kneaded her soft flesh.

Digging in his grip still harder, he said lightly, “You must be clearer than that, Miss Black. What is it that you want?”

“I want…” Trailing off, Bellatrix drew a shaking breath, seeming to struggle with herself. She closed her eyes—and when she opened them, they were ablaze with certainty. “I want you inside of me, Master.”

 _And there it is,_ thought Tom.  _Triumph._

Exultant in victory, he stepped back from the table, withdrawing his hands. Bellatrix looked back at him, confused, and paled at the look on his face.

Professor Riddle was no longer in the room—and Lord Voldemort expected nothing but unquestioning compliance.

“Open your legs and display yourself to me,” he hissed. “Show me what is mine.”

To his consummate satisfaction, she obeyed at once, widening her stance against the table, arching her back, and spreading herself to allow him a clear, open view of her slick folds. “Yours,” she breathed out, fervent.

He stood, for an instant, simply soaking her in: the pristine eldest daughter of the House of Black deflowered, degraded, and disrobed—yearning to serve him, longing to please him, positively _desperate_ to be filled by him.

Blazing, brilliant, beautiful Bellatrix Black. His favorite student, his future warrior, his most promising personal project. _His._

No more games. Tom stepped forward and slid into her waiting folds at last, sheathing himself in her hot, tight wetness with exacting savagery: taking for himself what her inevitable Pureblood husband would now never have. The wild, keening noise that escaped her at his claiming of her sounded hardly human—she grasped frantically for the edge of the table as he dug his fingers into her narrow hips and thrust deeper, the warm walls of her cunt stretching to take him as he pounded into her.

Flipping her over onto her back—restraining her arms above her head with a silent _Incarcarous_  and parting her thighs with a grip hard enough to bruise—he drove himself inside her again and again, reveling in the silken  _warmth_  of her against his own chilled flesh. She looked like a virgin sacrifice for some Dark ritual, spread out naked on the table in only her knee socks, with her hands bound and her entire pliant body at his mercy. He viciously slapped one of her bouncing little tits and felt her convulse with the pain and pleasure of it: she was crying out with every thrust, surrendering wholly to his possession of her.

When he met her eyes, she gave a sharp gasp, overcome at the intensity of his gaze, and he saw himself reflected in her mind: dark eyes burning into hers as if he could light them on fire, pupils narrowing into slits and back again, flashing briefly blood-red. He saw her, in that moment, think him terrifying, and magnificent, and _divine_. 

“Master,” she moaned, clenching around him, pressure building.  _“Oh_ —Master—”

Trailing a hand up her thigh to her clit—pressing and rolling the nub between his fingers—Tom sent three smooth words coiling into her mind with Legilimency. _Good girl, Bellatrix._  He felt her blood pump madly at that, her legs shaking and bucking as he wrenched her hips forward to fill her completely, ordering, "Come for me, Bella." With another convulsion and a soft, strangled sob, she complied. He stilled inside her as the orgasm rolled through her, as she tensed and tightened and throbbed around him. “My good, good girl.”

Her pleasure-hazed mind had room for only one thought now: the sound of his voice saying  _Bella._

Before she could catch her breath—before the final crushing wave of her release had even left her—he dissolved the ropes around her wrists and dragged her off the table to her knees, forcing her lips apart and thrusting into her mouth.

Tom had been ready for some time, but his self-control was—as ever— _exemplary_. Now, though—seizing her by the hair and forcing her to take him to the hilt, with the head of his cock ramming the back of her throat as she gagged—he was coming with a final savage thrust, coming so hard he had to throw one hand down on the table to steady himself.

Bellatrix moaned around him, sucking and swallowing his seed with wanton eagerness, licking up each drop as if dying of thirst. Tom finished with a final hissing groan and wrenched his softening cock out of her mouth—she drew a deep, shuddering breath, gasping for air. Her breasts were rising and falling rapidly, glistening with a sheen of sweat as she looked up at him in dazed veneration: the proud Pureblood princess made his willing, worshipful slave. It was positively intoxicating.

Dragging her to her feet by the hair, he pressed his mouth to hers, demanding and devouring. She whimpered against him as he parted her swollen lips to taste himself on her tongue. It was erotic to the point of nearly rousing him again—he contemplated, for a moment, canceling his next class to keep her locked inside this classroom for several more hours, finding increasingly creative ways to use her supple little body and eager little mouth until she was spent and sore and raw. 

The thought was fleeting—on disentangling himself from her warm lips and lithe limbs, Tom felt his head clear immediately. This diversion had lasted over half an hour, and he still had plenty of correspondence to get through this free period. Those owls and Floo calls to the esteemed members of the Wizengamot, for instance, really could not wait.

To linger any longer would be unconscionably self-indulgent, and there had been, he considered with a twinge of self-reproach, _quite_ enough indulgence for one day. There was, after all, an entire year ahead in which to toy with his new protégée… and Tom liked to think of himself as a _very_ patient man.

“Regrettably,” he said aloud, “duty calls, Miss Black.” Calmly refastening his robes, he gestured to her own, still strewn about the classroom floor. “You may dress yourself and go.”

Breathing hard, she nodded—looking as though he’d Stunned her, as though her mind was racing as fast as her heart.

Vaguely curious, he tilted her chin up to meet his eyes and peered once more into her mind. She was dizzy with shock and pain and pleasure, feeling grown-up and rebellious and somewhat sick with anxious trepidation. She was wondering why he was touching her like this; wondering if he would kiss her again and hoping he would. She was noticing how red-rimmed and bloodshot his eyes were, even now, so close like this, and thinking it _fascinating_ , thinking _everything_ about him fascinating. She was self-conscious about being naked when he was not and hoped her body was satisfactory to him. She wished he had allowed her to see more of his body, too. She wondered whether she had managed to please him, and whether he would allow her to please him again. She worried that he thought her a whore—or worse, that he thought her an immature child. She was remembering that she had Potions next period; remembering that she would have to return to Defense Against the Dark Arts later that week and sit in her seat at the front of the class and try not to think of him bending her over the table and binding her wrists and calling her _Bella_ ; remembering how good it felt to be under the Imperius, to be completely helpless and under his control. She hoped he would use more curses on her. She hoped he would let her use curses on someone else.

What a delight she was, thought Tom, tightening his grip on her aching jaw until she gasped. Such a good, _good_ girl. Continuing to shape her into his personalized weapon and private slave would be expedient _and_ enjoyable—always a preferred combination.

Releasing her so suddenly she nearly fell, Tom stepped away, pointing again to her scattered uniform—and when she started to turn, he said, "Wait."

She looked back at him, seeming hopeful, then colored as he Conjured new knickers for her to replace the ones he’d Vanished. These, she saw immediately, had far less black silk fabric. “Spell-woven silk is costly, as I'm sure you know, Miss Black,” he said by way of sardonic explanation. She reached for them, blushing—looking faint with renewed humiliation when he motioned for her to slip them on and turn for him. The small swatch of silk barely covered her sex, and left the entirety of her reddened backside still exposed. He smiled thinly. “You’ll make do, I’m sure.”

Seated once more behind his desk, Tom watched, amused, as she bent to gather the rest of her clothes with shaking hands, moving stiffly and sorely. Her delectable little arse still burned bright scarlet, and equally colorful bruises in the shape of his fingerprints were already blooming on her hips and thighs. All things considered, he doubted she would be paying much attention in Potions. Horace Slughorn had never been a particularly skilled Legilimens, but perhaps he would make eye contact with a squirming, wincing Bellatrix at precisely the right moment to know she'd spent her free period being stripped, spanked, and fucked by Professor Riddle. It would make their next staff meeting _immensely_ entertaining, to have Slughorn attempting to control his thoughts and facial expressions around Tom with even more discomfiture than usual.

In the long run, though, perhaps he ought to teach Bellatrix Occlumency. It would be a necessary skill, as his plans for the Death Eaters and Salazar's Basilisk were to reach culmination within the next year, and Dumbledore—who most certainly _was_ a particularly skilled Legilimens—could have no accidental insight into those plans. Besides, the training would allow him to penetrate her mind as thoroughly as he had penetrated her body…

"Professor?" Tom glanced up to see Bellatrix just finishing shrugging on her robes. She bit her lip as he looked at her expectantly, adding softly, " _Master_."

Tom couldn't contain a smirk. "Yes, Miss Black?"

She swallowed, uncharacteristically flustered. "I—I was wondering if you would be willing to continue these private lessons." Her lips quirked upward in a slight smirk of her own. "I find your practical, hands-on approach incredibly... illuminating."

"Such an apt, responsive pupil," replied Tom, not bothering to hide the amusement in his voice. "Your passion for learning is really most inspiring." She flushed prettily, lowering her eyes. Submissive deference—a previously unfamiliar look on her—was growing more familiar by the minute. "I will see you in detention on Saturday."

Her eyes flashed up again, widening hugely. "Detention?" she repeated, hands flickering unconsciously toward the back of her skirt. It was all Tom could do not to laugh.

"Calm yourself, Miss Black. You won't be the one being punished." She blinked, relief mingling with disappointment and shifting quickly to excitement as he continued. "Emmeline Vance made some terribly disrespectful remarks in class. Perhaps you can assist in getting her under control."

She stared at him, astonished. "You'll allow me to cast the Imperius?"

"Let's put your newly acquired knowledge to the test, shall we?" Tom smiled his third most disarming smile. Bellatrix swayed a little on her feet. "We'll explore the Cruciatus next," he added sleekly, already imagining exactly how he'd teach it to her. "You will enjoy that one, Miss Black." She would enjoy that one  _so_ very much. 

"I look forward to it," she said breathlessly, backing away toward the door with her satchel when Tom released the wards and turned back to his papers with pointed finality.

“Oh—Miss Black?” She turned back with her hand on the doorknob, wearing an elated expression. “Ten points to Slytherin for your extra credit work today.”

Elation fell to indignation as she gaped at him.  _"Ten points?"_

“Yes, I suppose that’s far too generous,” Tom said coolly, giving the impression of thinking it over. “Your inexperience with the subject matter did leave some skill to be desired, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be seen as playing favorites. Five points it is.”

Bellatrix shut her mouth, then opened it again, only to press her lips together tightly once more. “Yes, Master,” she managed to say through gritted teeth at last, lowering her head with what looked like phenomenal effort and bowing out of the room. “Thank you, Master.”

Tom smoothed back his hair and leaned back in his chair as the door shut quietly behind her. Truly, he reflected wryly, reaching for a scroll and quill to begin a carefully-worded letter to the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, this would be a  _highly_ pleasurable and  _most_ productive year.


End file.
